Astronomical Axe of Lamao Village, Qinghai, China - LexiLine Journal 360

I received the following comment at my Ancient World blog regarding my alleged decipherment of the astronomical axe of Lamao Vilage, Qinghai, China: http://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/astronomical-axe-of-lamao-village.htm

"There is another interpretation for this, much more in keeping with actual Chinese astronomy. Certainly Beidou is recognized, but so are many other important stars, like Zhaoyao and Beiji. The two large holes encompass Ziwei yuan, but were probably fittings (the artifact appears to be a rudimentary planisphere).

The marks on the sides are probably the 12 Branches, beginning with Chou in the bottom-left. This indicates a time near the Ploughing ceremony, which was associated with xiu Jiao (Spica), and also echoes the ancient legends of the Yellow Springs and the "drain" of the oceans and rivers."

This was my reply:

I am not sure that I understand what is meant by "actual" Chinese astronomy. We are interested in "ancient" Chinese astronomy.

I agree that the axe is a planisphere and that the two major holes were also "fittings".

Axes were surely used as ceremonial astronomical objects also in Western civilization (for example, on Sarsen 4 at Stonehenge to mark Leo - see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1097 and I have deciphered a ceremonial axe from the Brimble Pit Swallet
in England as marking Gemini and the surrounding stars. Axes were the main tools of the Neolithic age and thus surely highly revered.

A reference is made to Ziwei Yuan. As written at Circle of Asia about the Forbidden City of China: http://www.circleofasia.com/guide/Beijing.asp

"It is believed that the Palace Museum, or Zi Jin Cheng (Purple
Forbidden City), got its name from astronomy and folklore. The
ancient astronomers divided the constellations into groups and
centered them around the Ziwei Yuan (North Star). The constellation
containing the North Star was called the Constellation of Heavenly
God and the star itself was called the purple palace. Because the
emperor was supposedly the son of the heavenly gods, his central and
dominant position would be further highlighted by the use of the word
purple in the name of his residence."

As regards Beidou, we find written at qi-whiz.com on Taoist Feng Shui: http://www.qi-whiz.com/Debunking/deeb11.html

"The Nine Stars are based on astronomy, which was later mythologized. Since the fourth century CE, Daoists have recognized the stars of Beidou (Ursa Major) as gods. However, they claim the constellation consists of nine stars, but only seven stars are visible to ordinary people. When the Zhou observed the heavens Beidou was much nearer the north pole, just as four thousand years ago the xiu were much nearer to the equator than they are now. Ancient astronomers could extend the handle of Beidou through the constellation of Bootes as long as it remained above the horizon. It is believed that gamma Bootes ("Far- Flight" or Zhaoyao), which was lost to visibility around 1500 BCE, was once part of Beidou. (The ninth star is still unknown.) Draw a line through the "handle" of Beidou to find Zhaoyao. In the Star Manual of Master Shi (third century BCE), Beidou was eight stars plus Fu, the operator of Kaiyang (Mizar), the sixth star of Beidou. Yuheng (Alioth) was the fifth star (the Jade Observation Tube). By the time of Hanlong jing the nine stars indicated earthly counterparts of the stars in Beidou and of mountain shapes. During the Qing dynasty, when ba zhai was a popular feng shui technique, the Nine Stars provided only names for eight auspices associated with triagrams.
References: Field, Xun and Kistemaker, Joseph Yu, Lagerwey, Kalinowski (Early China), Staal."

We can also quote here ZU CHONGZHI AND THE CHINESE CALENDAR REFORM OF 462 AD, A GEM1506K PROJECT BY: LIM NYEK FONG, ELAYNE ONG SZE JIE, DESMOND TEO CHIH LEANG and YANG SHAO-YUN: http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/hm/Zu_Chongzhi.pdf

"Chinese astronomy, like that of every other ancient civilization, had its roots in astrology. Starting from the Warring States period (480-222 BC), astrologers began to group the stars into constellations, each with a symbolic significance, in relation to which the motions of the sun, moon and planets were used as portents of earthly events. Eventually up to 283 constellations were identified, and the 28 most important were classified as lunar mansions (xiu)2. They were then further divided into 4 'palaces' of 7, corresponding with the 4 seasons and 4 compass directions. There was also a 'central palace' consisting of all circumpolar stars within 40 degrees from the north celestial pole."

At our megalithic site we write: http://www.megaliths.co.uk/china.htm

"There is an old Chinese system of marking the sky, consisting of 28 moon stations (lunar mansions), called xiu or sieu. Our decipherment of the Great Wall of China gives us the original position of these lunar mansions. They are much older than currently thought.

In modern times they are started at the star Spica in Virgo, but this of course was not the original position. The scholars rely on sources such as Hasumi Yasui - who wrote only in 1699 AD - thinking that Spica started the Lunar Mansions because Spica marked the Autumn Equinox in ca. 500 AD. But this undisputed fact about Spica in 500 AD has nothing to do with dating of the origin of the xiu system nor which lunar mansion was originally first - many years prior to 500
AD."

There is of course the system of 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches. This is known as Gan-Zhi. http://www.hko.gov.hk/gts/time/stemsandbranches.htm

What the 12 refer to are the 12 houses of the Yellow Path: http://www.chinapage.com/astronomy/syho/syho.html

"Ancient Chinese determined seasons through the pointing direction of the handle of the Big Dipper (the Plough). In the winter the "handle" points downward, north, at early evening. In the spring the "handle" points east at early evening, and so on. Accordingly, ancient Chinese divided the horizon into twelve sections and gave them names for linking the directions to which the "handle" of Big Dipper points in twelve months. Twelve names of these sections are Zi (north), Chou, Yin, Mao (east), Chen, Si, Wu (south), Wei, Shen, You (west), Xu and Hai, and are known as twelve Terrestrial/Earthly Branches. Each branch has its meaning, e.g.. Zi means to nurture. Finally, the twelve Terrestrial/Earthly Branches were applied to the 12 houses of the Yellow Path and arranged in clockwise direction."

That Chou ("ox") would have any role in starting this path is doubtful.

The idea that an axe would be used to symbolize the ploughing ceremony is also highly questionable.

"Yellow Springs" represent the underworld and have nothing to do with this axe.
http://www.qugs.org.au/queensland-wargamer/afterlife.htm

The "drain" of the oceans and rivers are irrelevant to this artifact and there is no connection of any kind visible.

In any case, based on the above, it is quite clear that the one side of the axe represents Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) and not Spica, whose stars are never shown anywhere in ancient days as cupmarked on the axe.

The cited sources show how important the Big Dipper and its handle were to ancient Chinese astronomy and we see that verified by this axe.

Metric vs. Imperial Measurement and Ancient Measures : Secrets of the Great Pyramid by Peter Tompkins - LexiLine Journal 359

When we discuss ancient astronomy and archaeoastronomy we must also keep in mind the system of measurement used by the ancients, which was the now-called "imperial" system.

I remember well personally stepping off the relative lengths of the square-cut rocks at the temples of Malta to discover they often had the ratio of the sides of 3 x 4. This was additional clear evidence that the megalithic makers used the imperial system. When I asked the archaeologist who was guiding my tour of the temples what system of measurement the builders used, the archaeologist had no idea, but otherwise acted as if the answers were known, which of course, they were not. The archaeologist had no clue as to who built the temples or why.

Anyone who has built anything knows that you first have to have a system of measure and then proceed from there to build. The system of measure is one of the surest indicators of the provenance of ancient sites - but do not expect mainstream archaeologists to understand this simple wisdom. They prefer scholarly opinion to facts.

The imperial system has recently been in the news as follows:

EUobserver reports in an article by Lisbeth Kirk at http://euobserver.com/?aid=19737&rk=1 that Brussels pressures Britain to go metric.

We have never understood what advantage this is supposed to bring to the UK or anyone else for that matter. After all, the two leading nations of the world, the US and the UK, both still use the ancient inches and feet sexagesimal-type "imperial" system, which is still also visible in the fact that we have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and so on.

Imagine - for the sake of consistency - now changing those as well to the metric system, e.g. so that we would have 100 deci-minutes in an hour or 30 deci-hours in a day. It would be chaos.

To this we can add the powerful worldwide prevalence of the 360-degree circle, the change of which to a 300 or 400 degree circle would wreak absolute havoc in all the world's mathematics and measurement. The use of a 360-degree circle of course goes back to astronomy and the 360-day year used for ancient civil calendars.

At the level of computer users, various attempts have been made here in continental Europe to replace the inch descriptions of computer monitors and screens with metric equivalents, to no avail, since it simply leads to mass confusion and time-wasting relearning with no logical benefit. Computer monitors are advertised and almost everywhere in Europe still described to be 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, etc. inches.

We not only print by dots per inch http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/columns/ajs_resolution.htmldpi but the well-known pixel = one dot. Our screen resolution is given in pixels. It would then be completely idiotic not to also measure monitor and screen sizes by the imperial system.

It would be even worse for our use and understanding of text fonts if also here we had to go from the imperial to the metric system, since font sizes are give in points, and 72 points = 1 inch. The standard 12-point type is thus 1/6 of an inch, except that Microsoft Windows magnifies fonts by 33% so that only Macs actually render 12-point type accurately, which in the past led to different website text resolution on Macs than on PCs. See http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/columns/ajs_ppi.html

The American Bar Association has an excellent article by Mark Senn on
its website http://www.abanet.org/rppt/publications/magazine/2002/02ma/senn.html entitled "Reflections on Some Forgotten Terms of Land Measurement" (published in Probate Property, March/April 2002, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp 8-11, here http://tinyurl.com/dzlgm viz.
http://www.sennlaw.com/Publications/Senn/Probate%20Property%2004-05%202002.pdf as a .pdf, and based on a similar article originally published in 19 ACREL News No. 3, Aug. 2001, at 5) which contains a useful summary of the development of both the imperial and metric systems in human and land measurement. Of course, land measurement goes back to the days of the megaliths and their use for survey and for marking boundaries.

One of the best books on ancient measurement systems is Secrets of the Great Pyramid, by Peter Tompkins, especially the Appendix, Notes on the Relation of Ancient Measures to the Great Pyramid, by Livio Stecchini, "one of the world's leading authorities on ancient mensuration", whose mentors had been professors of law.

Stecchini too became a professor of law and wrote much about ancient measurement, making the following observations about the scholars (p. 289-291):

"The study of Greek temples ... led me to the study of ancient geography and geodesy. But I was gradually forced to accept the fact that scholars of ancient history do not read numbers, neither in ancient texts nor in research papers .... In many different guises I was told that "numbers do not constitute evidence in ancient
studies." ....

Yet the techniques of land surveying used in Mesopotamia are a key to the understanding of how the ancients mapped the sky.... [emphasis added]

[Tompkins' explanation of the geometry of the Great Pyramid] permitted me to see ancient astronomy in terms of observational techniques based on measurements, rather than systems based on the theological persuasions or the psychological projections of the modern investigators...." [emphasis added]

The book by Tompkins is essential reading for anyone interested in this field.

Astronomical Megaliths in Armenia : Carahunge (Carahundge, Caranish) near Goris, Ararat : Astroarchaeological Monuments - LexiLine Journal 358

A reader of my websites has referred me to the previously unknown megaliths of Armenia at Carahunge (Carahundge, Caranish) near Goris, about 150 km southeast of Ararat. For maps of Armenia see MultiMap at http://uk.multimap.com/index/AM1.htm

For the megalithic site of Carahunge itself see the website http://www.carahunge.com/index.html and the reference to the book by Professor Paris Herouni "Armenians and Old Armenia" at
http://www.carahunge.com/carahunge-book.html

There is also a good discussion by Nikolai Bochkarev entitled "Ancient Armenian Astroarchaeological Monuments: Personal Impressions of Metsamor and Carahunge" at http://www.folklore.ee/SEAC/SEAC_teesid2.htm

Professor Herouni dates Carahunge to 5000 BC which I find to be doubtful, since the megalithic-building period centers around 3000 BC. Bochkarev writes in this regard:

"The author is in all probability the first professional astronomer outside Armenia who has ever visited Carahunge. The site is located 3 km from the city of SiSian (in the Eastern part of the Republic of Armenia and 200 km from the capital, Yerevan) at the Eastern slope of Zangezur Ridge, 1770 m above sea level at 39.5 deg. North latitude and 46.0 deg. East longitude. It is part of a larger neolithic site dating from the third/second millennia BC with many dolmens and similar features. The monument consists of more than 200 vertical 1 - 2.8 m high megaliths of considerably varying form (P. Herouni with co-workers counted and described 222 main stones). Some of the stones (no more than a quarter of the total) have fallen to the ground."

I think Bochkarev is closer to the true date of the Carahunge site, which will be part of the ancient survey of the Earth by astronomy that I describe in my book Stars Stones and Scholars. See http://www.starsstonesscholars.com/ However, I have not yet read Herouni's book and until I do, my remarks here are provisional.

My initial examination of available photographs of the megaliths at Carahunge definitely show them to be of a style of carving typical for ca. 3000 BC. In addition, whereas everyone is concentrating on the holes in the megaliths, some of the megaliths show clear signs of being carved into definite shapes and also have cupmarks for the stars to which they are oriented - features which can not be ignored.

Research needs to be done here.

Agoza, Chad, Africa - Ancient Border Point - Extreme Northern Latitude of the Lion - LexiLine Journal 357

I received an inquiry relating to Agoza which indicated that I needed to post some more information about it. Agoza is merely the site of ancient ruins which have thus far not been dated.

For background, see my postings at
http://www.megaliths.net/ancientneareast.htm and
http://snipurl.com/h1lk viz.
http://archaeopundit.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_archaeopundit_archive.html#107929913155694335

Please note that Arabic Qasr means "fortification" and that this word was used to mark ancient border points. Qasr has become Agoza by loss of the ending r, i.e. QAS-r = aGOZa.

Agoza is located in the Ennedi region, where ancient prehistoric rock art has been found.
See http://www.archaeoafrica.de/

As noted at that website, which also has a nice clickable map of "archaeology in Africa", parts of this region of Africa and the Darb El Arba'in Desert are among the least explored regions
http://snipurl.com/h1mr viz.
http://www.tec.army.mil/research/products/desert_guide/laxopcom/biblio.htm
of our planet, but we do have evidence of nearby prehistoric inhabitation....
See http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~knicoll/mi/nika.pdf
I myself have never been there.

The ruins at Agoza are referred to at:

http://snipurl.com/h1n0 viz. http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:Qcfac2LEq4wJ:www.globalcoordinate.com/items/1137124.aspx+agoza+ancient&hl=en

http://www.viovio.com/travel/101613725 and

http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/chad/map/m1613725/agoza.html

and its location is found given at

http://atlas.splad.com/atlasville_41534.html

Note that there are some differences in latitude for the location of Agoza given by the various soruces.

A map of the actual location is found at http://www.reiseklinikken.com/ChaDistribution.pdf
which resolves the issue, showing that Agoza is above 18° north latitude.

The ruins are located near the mountain of Tagoulicha - see http://snipurl.com/h1lj viz.
http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/chad/map/m1633000/tagoulicha.html

and the Depression du Mourdi
see http://www.haberlah.com/fu/sahara.html

The larger area is called the Erdi Plateau.

Thr area known as the Erdi Plateau is interesting because it
represents the highest latitude at which the African lion has been
found.

As written at
http://snipurl.com/h1k1 viz.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-23,GGLG:en&q=chad+lion+plateau+erdi

"The extreme latitudes of the lion range are:
Highest latitudes
- Northern Hemisphere
The African lion has been extirpated from all the former high latitudes where it used to live, both in the Northern (North Africa) and Southern Hemisphere (the Cape). Rock paintings also attest to the former presence of lion deep inside what is now the Sahara Desert. The famous Theodore Monod reported in Northern Chad that a lion was shot in 1927 in the region of Erdi Dji (as far North as 19°N, just where the 3 borders Chad, Libya, Sudan meet), and another lion was shot in 1940 near Mourdi (18°30'N) (Smithers, 1983). Now lions are still present in Central Africa up to 15°N (Hoinathy Honimadji, pers. comm.; J. Tubiana, pers. comm.). The Northernmost lion populations are probably:
(i) The few remaining individuals of Boucle du Baoulé National Park in Mali (if
they still exist);
(ii) The small relict population of Kapka mountain range, a non-gazetted area in North-Eastern Chad (the Ennedi mountain range seems to have lost its lion
population), and;
(iii) The population of Dinder National Park, Sudan, and of the neighbouring area in Ethiopia."

Where the current borders of Chad, Libya and Sudan meet is must a bit north of Agoza, the ancient border point. These modern borders are not quite accurate. See
http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS015.pdf

There is also an ancient ruin at Qunianga Kebir (Qunianga Serir) to the northwest, of which a picture photo exists at http://www.archaeoafrica.de/G_Wanyanga.html

Very interesting.

Moonrise at Chimney Rock - LexiLine Journal 356

Moonrise at Chimney Rock in Colorado - is described in this Denver Post article of August 9, 2005:

http://www.denverpost.com/favicon.ico/ci_2909172

Prof. J. McKim Malville thinks that the Pueblo Indians observed the "lunar standstill" at Chimney Rock. As written in the article, "Trekkers eager to be moonstruck: Ruins on Colo. mesa offer view of lunar standstill", by Electa Draper, Denver Post Staff Writer:

"Every 18.61 years, the moon completes a great sweep across the sky until moonrise finally occurs at the northernmost point of the lunar journey along the horizon. This astronomical event lasts almost four years."

Written there also is:

"Archaeologists believe this special purpose for Chimney Rock was lost until rediscovered in 1988 by University of Colorado professor J. McKim Malville."

For once, we agree with a mainstream archaeologist. Malville is surely right.

This 18.61 year cycle was known in ancient Babylon as the Saros Cycle.

This 18.61 year cycle is also found in the United Kingdom marked by the 56 Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge (18.61 x3), which can be used to predict eclipses.

Evidentiary Archaeology - LexiLine Journal 355

In the previous post I referred to the idea that the materials in LexiLine and elsewhere posted by this author stem from the school of evidentiary archaeology, of which I am the founder, rather than from the schools of cultural history, processual archaeology or postprocessual archaeology.

We can illustrate the principle of evidentiary archaeology with a simple hypothetical example.

Let us presume that a people X initially lived in country A and that in the course of history this people moved to country B. Many thousands of years later, in the written records of people X, we find detailed accounts of the ancient magnificent reigns and exploits of their many early kings, for which, however, we find no archaeological record in country B. At the same time, we find extensive archaeological evidence of magnificent reigns of kings in country A.

Which answer below is more probable as a logical matter?

1. The kings referred to in the ancient written records of people X could be the kings of country A.
2. The kings referred to in country B actually existed in country B but somehow disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving no archaeological record.
3. The written records are a monumental fiction, for whatever purpose.

The obvious, logical answer is number 1. The kings referred to in the ancient written records of people X could be the kings of country A.

This hypothetical question actually repeats the actual real-life situation with respect to the Hebrew records of their ancient kings. The Hebrews were first in Egypt and then moved to Israel, according to the Biblical account. The Old Testament is full of detailed accounts of the reigns and exploits of many kings. Rather than examining alternative 1, however, mainstream archaeology, caught in the traps of cultural history, and processual and postprocessual archaeology, has selected option 2 (with some persons even opting for option 3). How stupid is that?

What amuses about option 2, which is the prevailing option in mainstream archaeology, is that it would also mean that people X had lost ALL memory of their sojourn in country A and the kings that ruled that country, writing only about country B. How likely is that?

For all of their fancy titles, the cultural historians and processual and postprocessual archaeologists appear to be intellectual simpletons who are unable to examine the most logical alternative, that the kings referred to in the Old Testament are those of Egypt, with all of the ramifications that such an analysis has for the history of civilization.

Why is option 1 above not being examined by mainstream archaeology?

The first major reason is the fact that the Egyptian hieroglyphs were only recently deciphered (and this has been done only partly). Prior to that time, no connection was seen between Egypt and the Hebrews, who had their own known language and their own known country.

The second major reason is that it was thus assumed that the Hebrew account of the exploits of kings applied to Israel, and not to the country which the Hebrews occupied prior to Exodus, i.e. Egypt.

This assumption was demonstrably false.

I can only shake my head in disbelief at the nonsense being churned out in mainstream archaeology in this regard and continue to point at the evidence, which clearly indicates the kings of the Old Testament are the kings of Egypt.

The Goddess and the Bull, Catalhoyuk [Çatalhöyük, Catalhuyuk, Çatalhüyük, Çatal Hüyük, Catal Huyuk, Catal Hoyuk] - LexiLine Journal 354

As a graduate of Stanford Law School (class of 1971), I regularly recieve the Stanford Lawyer, which I always read cover to cover, including the class notes of all Stanford Law graduation years, for this latter especially gives me a sound perspective on life.

The Stanford Lawyer Spring 2005 issue which I just received has an interesting commentary by Stanford Law class correspondent Malcolm H. Furbush (class of 1949) which I would like to share with you since it applies directly to our major theme, the history of civilization.
Furbush writes:

"In the spring of 2000 I accompanied my friend Dr. Johan Hultin to visit the area where agriculture began (about 9,000 B.C.) with the domestication of einkorn wheat in the Karacadag Mountains of southeast Turkey near the city of Diyarbakir. The wild einkorn wheat is still growing in some patches in the mountains.... We had heard of the reactivation of large-scale excavation activity at Catalhoyuk (near Konya, Turkey) believed to be the earliest city. The current excavations are directed by Ian Hodder, a Stanford professor.... The purpose of this brief personal account is to introduce a new book, The Goddess and the Bull, Catalhoyuk: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization, by Michael Balter. M. Balter writes about the individuals currently participating in the excavations at Catalhoyuk, their many different fields of expertise, and how they are all adding to a comprehensive understanding of the material uncovered by excavation by following the conceptual approach of post-processual archaeology of which Ian Hodder can be said to be the chief architect. For those of us who have been archaeology buffs for as long as we can remember, this is a fascinating book."

The book looks interesting, but of special interest for us was the use of the concept of post-processual archaeology about which the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-processual_archaeology writes:

"Postprocessual archaeologists state that personal biases inevitably affect the very questions archaeologists ask and direct them to the conclusions they are predisposed to believe."

How true. How true.

Read more about culture history, and processual and postprocessual archaeology here:

AbsoluteAstronomy.com - http://snipurl.com/ggug viz. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/c/cu/cultural-history_archaeology.htm
About.com - http://archaeology.about.com/od/pterms/g/postprocess.htm
Origins.net - http://www.originsnet.org/moremeth1.html

We would like to think that our own work at LexiLine and elsewhere is the dawn of a new archaeology which we call "evidentiary archaeology" - i.e. the past is what the evidence tells us it was and not what the professors tell us it was. I am sure that evidentiary archaeology would be a revolutionary approach for many archaeologists of any of the above schools.